Apologies for the late blog post.  It’s been a very busy last several weeks.

I spent the first week on vacation.  While that may sound relaxing if you’re not familiar with a Duffin style vacation it consists of high levels of stress, physical work, limited eating, and often wrenching on vehicles.  This vacation consisted of visiting family and 4wheeling with friends in the desert, broken parts, rollovers, and other good times. 

Then I got back from vacation and was a week out from a meet.  I worked 4 days, celebrated my 37th and my daughters 2^nd birthday, and then competed on Saturday. 

Weighed in at 220.2lbs

Squat

805 – 2 whites

838 – 2 whites

860 – 2 whites – New ALL-TIME Raw w/wraps squat record!

Bench

440 – 3 whites /smoked it

485 – Miss

485 – Miss

Deadlift

Was barely able to hang onto 705 as my last warmup so dropped my openers

705 – 3 whites

740 – 3 whites

805 – Miss

2039 total at 220. 
I know Green and Belyaev have totaled more than this at 220 but not sure about anyone else.

My goal had been 860/485/860 but obviously my lack of time on the platform played a role in significantly underperforming to my expectations.

Squat - Went exactly to plan.
Bench - I felt good on but I had some balance issues for some reason and nearly dumped the weight on the descent on both 2^nd and 3^rd attempts.  My bench I’ve been training on has been 1” below spec height so I think the change in pad heights might have played a role.  Need to resolve this.

Deadlift - Totally screwed with my head in the warmup room.  Once I missed my first attempt at 705 in the warmup room my head was shot.  Couldn’t pull it off the floor as it just slipped out of my hands.  The humidity was very high by the time deadlifts came along so I was assuming this was the reason.  However upon returning to the gym I found that baby powder had been mixed with the chalk.  If this happened prior to or at the meet it would have been enough to results in these problems.  But in reflection I need to get my hook grip that much stronger as I can’t have these minor deviances from the norm kill my meet in the future. 

Sunday following the meet I flew out for Japan on a business trip and was there till the following Saturday night.

So outside a meet I have not ‘trained’ 3 weeks!!!

Big thanks to my friend Andrie for the Meet Video

And a few video’s of the wheeling trip.